


A Modest Proposal

by Aeshna etonensis (GMWWemyss)



Series: Modest Proposals [1]
Category: One Direction (Band), Village Tales
Genre: Bigotry on the part of villainous characters, Church of England, Cricket, Gen, Legal Drama, M/M, Northern Soul, The Establishment, The Woolfonts, West Country
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-02
Updated: 2014-12-02
Packaged: 2018-02-27 21:54:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,149
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2708093
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GMWWemyss/pseuds/Aeshna%20etonensis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which pull (as commonly) does more than push, and freedom is just another word for ... having the Establishment on your side.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A melancholy object

**Author's Note:**

> If there is one thing this fandom wants and wishes, it is, of course, the wish-fulfilment of seeing Modest pried loose from the boys, and contrariwise.
> 
> It occurred to me that, in actuality, pull always does do more than push, and such a firm can resist almost anything save the Establishment. It further occurred to me that I have the slight advantage of having already characters who are more than capable of exerting that pull and who epitomise the Establishment. Including a dux ex machina.
> 
> In consequence of which, this appallingly plot-driven, sadly romance-light excursion in gratifying fandom’s universal yen for seeing Modest paid out and put paid to.

* * *

_I have too long digressed, and therefore shall return to my subject. I think the advantages by the proposal which I have made are obvious and many, as well as of the highest importance._

… _I can think of no one objection, that will possibly be raised against this proposal...._

_Therefore I repeat, let no man talk to me of these and the like expedients, ’til he hath at least some glympse of hope, that there will ever be some hearty and sincere attempt to put them into practice._

_But, as to my self, having been wearied out for many years with offering vain, idle, visionary thoughts, and at length utterly despairing of success, I fortunately fell upon this proposal, which, as it is wholly new, so it hath something solid and real, of no expence and little trouble, full in our own power, and whereby we can incur no danger in disobliging England._

_After all, I am not so violently bent upon my own opinion as to reject any offer proposed by wise men, which shall be found equally innocent, cheap, easy, and effectual._

* * *

It was, in a sense, Hetty’s fault, as her uncle’s much-indulged niece. That is to say, the situation could be traced, if you liked, to the well-known enthusiasms of Henrietta Maria Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet, third child and only daughter of Lady Crispin and the late Lord Crispin Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet, she being thereby the niece of Lord Crispin’s elder brother, that Most High, Potent, and Noble Prince His Grace, the Most Noble Charles Arthur Donald Ivor Waldemar Fitzjames-Holles-Clare-Malet KG GCB KCVO MiD, duke of Taunton, marquess of Templecombe, earl Fitzwarren, earl of Dilton, viscount Malet, baron Daubeny, baron Chard, baron Beechbourne, baron Marden and Widham, VRSM DL JP FRHistS, Major (Ret’d) the Intelligence Corps, Privy Counsellor, Fellow of All Souls, and MA (Oxon) – otherwise Charles Taunton.

Cheltenham Ladies’ had long since resigned itself to the fact that Hetty was clever enough in her way, and specially in _having_ her way, so long as the matter were one which interested her; and to the fact that very little interested her save horses and boys … and, as a subset of the latter, boybands. Well: _one_ boyband. Her mother, Lady Crispin – the indomitable Connie – had indulged her own privilege of that temper and temperament which commonly goes with a highish sort of colour and with red hair, when she had learnt that Hetty had taken on as a hobby the writing of fanfiction _about_ her beloved boyband; Uncle Charles had not precisely soothed his sister-in-law, although he had gratified his niece exceedingly, by noting with overmuch frankness that anything which provoked the child to grammar and composition was worth winking at, let alone turning a blind and Nelsonian eye to (which, if truth were told, was rather the opinion of the CLC Principal and the Head of English, only more so). (Hetty’s sense of obligation towards Uncle Charles had not outlasted his having then turned immediately to criticism and correction of her style and skill. The duke being one of the few instances of an intellectual cropping up, as a sport, in the hereditary peerage – Fellow of All Souls and, as an historian and biographer, winner of the Duff Cooper and Wolfson prizes in the past – he was not precisely what Hetty thought at all fair by way of a volunteer and unsolicited ‘beta’.)

Rupert and Jamie, Hetty’s brothers, were merely amused by the whole thing. At first. And even when it appeared likely that tiresomeness should result, Rupert and Jamie did not waver, as they had never wavered, in their conviction that Uncle Charles should pull off any coup he liked.

If there were moments in which Charles Taunton privately doubted that he might do just that (and there is no record of such doubts, then or ever), he carefully did not let on.

It was a standing joke in the Woolfonts – the three parishes of Woolfont Magna, Woolfont Crucis, and Woolfont Abbas, with little Woolfont Parva in their train – that fate and the duke between them had gathered there a slightly older (and, in several cases, wiser) iteration of Hetty’s Favourite Boyband. It was uncomfortably true that the gentle, young, Anglo-Catholic Rector, Fr Noel Paddick SSC, all thews and muscles beneath his cassock, and in origin a working-class lad from the West Midlands; the Leeds-born English and Music master at the Beechbourne Free School in the nearby market town, Mr Sher Mirza MMus MA (who with the Rector comprised a couple utterly chaste yet in all other aspects utterly married); the retired Premier League footballer from Oop North, Edmond Huskisson, outed, injured because outed, and thus exiled from his dream, to become an activist; his civil partner Teddy Gates, the ‘Hipsta Chef’, that tall, daft, Cheshire lad who’d become a famous pâtissier, then a full chef, and whom the duke had inveigled into taking over The Woolford Hotel and spangling it with Michelin stars; and that Irish-born former England wicketkeeper turned TMS stalwart, that ever-laughing, always-hungry Professional Irishman Brian ‘The Breener’ Maguire, very little tamed even by his marriage to the Hon. Gwen Evans, who ran the Woolbury Stud: between them all too much resembled and iterated the idols of Hetty’s worship.

The idea, however, that those idols should themselves ever become connected with the three parishes and the District ’round was not so much as imagined down the Boar or over the tea-cups of the innumerable meetings of every worthy enterprise from the Literary Society to the Local History Group, the WI, the Conservative Association, and the Village Concert Committee.

And yet, it was partly that coincidence which allowed Charles Taunton to engage in the sort of craft and cunning he best loved, in the end.

* * *

The problem, explained the extremely reserved and extremely expensive solicitor to his American clients, was quite simple.

‘You gentlemen, and the – ah – other parties –’ Young Mr Hales-Owen (who was rising fifty; _Old_ Mr Hales-Owen, his father, was however unwilling to retire, and retained the nominal headship of the firm) was stretching a point, he rather felt, in his clients’ behalf as matters stood; not for worlds should he have gone on also to accord to their _opponents,_ British though these were, the name of ‘gentlemen’ – ‘are evenly matched, in what I may call purely, ah, _commercial_ terms –’

‘Whaddya mean,’ said the Napoleonic American tycoon; ‘I could buy and sell these putzes a thousand times over.’

‘Very likely,’ said Young Mr Hales-Owen, repressively. ‘When, however, one factors in matters of contractual advantage, relationships with other important parties – labels, not least –, and the disfavouring effect of what one might call a sort of legal and commercial chauvinism, not to say xenophobia –’

‘Yeah, yeah. Anti-Semitism too, I’ll bet.’

‘One cannot say that such a factor is impossible, but one mustn’t allege it without proof.’

‘ _Lawyers._ All right, okay, all right. So they got a few – _intangible_ – advantages. So what are we going to do about it? In the first place, I’m not in this just to get the American action, and in the second place, I’m tired of seeing these boys fucked around and over, and the only way to stop that is to stop it on both sides of the Pond, _nu?_ So, okay, we’re at an impasse. I’m paying you to break it. So how y’ going to break it?’

‘My dear sir! It’s only an impasse if one accepts the boundaries hitherto set: as, for example, regarding this simply as a _commercial_ negotiation. What you want to bring to bear is _influence._ In the end, you know, pull, as it were, does quite often, in this country, accomplish rather more than does, ah, _push._ ’

‘You’re telling me we need a Brit partner in this to pry the UK side of the deal loose. One with connections.’

‘I submit it is worth considering, at the very least. There are moments when the Establishment really is a very present help in time of trouble.’

‘Who y’ got in mind? Old, experienced firm, been doing this since Henry the Eighth was beheading wives?’

‘Oh, the firm doesn’t – yet – exist.’

The Americans simply goggled at Young Mr Hales-Owen: who smiled.

* * *

‘Your Grace?’ The duke’s butler, Viney, was at his most cautious – and cautionary. Paul Viney – _Mr_ Viney to all save the duke and his family – was the ducal butler there at Wolfdown House only, as the French say, in principle: being in fact Charles Taunton’s 2i/c, eyes, ears, fellow churchwarden, and vice-captain of the all-conquerant Woolfonts Combined XI. His responsibilities and his pay were roughly equivalent to those of a senior civil servant, and he was worth twice the money. (That _other_ Charles, HRH, had been known to suggest that, had Charles Taunton’s descent from James 2  d  and 7 th  been legitimate, the Fitzjames being C of E to a man, Charles Taunton should no doubt be king this day … and Viney either PM or Cabinet Secretary to a puppet PM, whichever suited the two old connivers the better.)

‘Yes, Viney?’

‘Mr Simon Hales-Owen has rung up and should be obliged for a few words with Your Grace.’ The note of warning was now blatant in Viney’s tones: and unnecessary. Simon Hales-Owen had been a weedy F-Blocker when Charles Taunton had been an ornament of B Block at school (although they were old enough, both of them, to remember rather forms than blocks); and Charles, in those days Lord Templecombe by courtesy and ‘Tempers’ by eke-name, captain of the 1st XI and a power in Pop, had taken the measure of young Simon Hales-Owen in passing. _Swotty, sinuous little slack bob: bound to come to no good,_ had Charles judged, almost certain to end a Kingsman – Charles detested Tabs – and a lawyer or some damned thing.... Given this early judgement, which had been vindicated as prophecy and which Hales-Owen S had never given Charles Taunton any reason to revise, it had been no surprise at all that the duke had seen to it that certain matters of business – _not,_ of course, those of the Taunton Estate – had been steered to the said Hales-Owen and his firm as some of His Grace’s men of business, when the qualities of the serpent rather than of the dove had been apt to the struggle.

‘Should he indeed,’ said the duke, chortling darkly. This, he clearly felt, with all his Int-Corps-honed slyness, should be interestin’.

* * *

‘ _Who,_ ’ asked Louis of the world at large, nose wrinkled and voice at its most nasal, truculent, Northern, and flat-’atted, ‘is the duke of Taunton and why is he asking us down for a weekend?’

This, of course, the duke had not done and should never have done: he had asked them to Wolfdown House for a Friday to Monday. No Fitzjames duke or any of their duchesses had _ever_ sullied themselves with the term ‘weekend’.

Harry spoke even more slowly than usual, treacle dripping into bran, husky and hesitant: he clearly feared that his Louis should lead them all in mocking him as being the (comparatively) posh one for knowing the answer. ‘He’s … well –’

‘Oh, but I know.’ It wasn’t like Zayn to cut in in such circumstances, or on such topics, and it got everyone’s attention. ‘He’s a scholar, like. And rich – not like most of the peerage these days. A cricketer and an old friend and team-mate of the Nawab of Hubli.’

‘Ah.’ Even Louis had heard of HH the Nawab and his Begum, who were very highly regarded indeed in Zayn’s community, not least because the Begum was herself from Leeds.

‘Wait,’ said Liam. ‘So – the duke’s the one down in the West Country, right, who puts on the festivals and created a steam railway and that.’

Louis rolled his eyes. ‘Well, if he wants _us_ to do a – a village _fête_ or summat, he wants to contact m- – well. Bugger.’

Niall was on the verge of saying something more than commonly outrageous when there was a knock on the door.

* * *

‘Bloody poofters. Little batty-boys. Shirt-lifting –’

‘Oh, absolutely, HM. And ungrateful with it.’

‘I can’t tell you how tempted I am to let the buggers go, let all their tawdry secrets come out, and laugh as they collapse into the obscurity they deserve. Had it not been for us and Hackford Jones –’

‘Quite. All the same....’

‘All the same, I want residuals, I want a piece in perpetuity, I want a stream of income as long as they get tuppence in royalties. Be delighted not to manage the unmanageable little shits, but I want the mun. And I’ll be damned if those sodding Yanks and yids get the whole pie: we _baked_ that pie, damn it.’

* * *

‘Trust me on this, boys. Go spend a weekend with this dook. He may be your way out.’

‘Well, all right,’ said Harry, slowly. ‘If you say so, Irv.’

* * *

‘The young gentlemen have accepted Your Grace’s invitation,’ said Viney.

‘Well, of course they’ve accepted,’ said Charles duke of Taunton, to whose mind the possibility they might not had simply not occurred. ‘We’ll have The Lads –’ by which the duke meant the Rector, Sher Mirza, Edmond Huskisson, Teddy Gates, and The Breener – ‘and the Hon. Gwen to dine with us on the Friday. Nobby stops with us from Thursday, I believe?’

‘HH the Nawab arrives shortly before tea, Your Grace. I understand – as of this morning – that HH the Begum is in fact to accompany HH.’

‘ _That’ll_ change five times before mornin’. Woman’ll be off in her snipe-like fashion on some project, buildin’ a school – and layin’ the bricks herself – in Bandhi or runnin’ up a rec centre in Bradford. Mrs T in a shalwar qameez, that one: one admires her, but one doesn’t envy Nobby his wife, Alam his sister, or Young Sher his aunt. Speakin’ of infuriatin’ female connexions, Connie’s been put in the picture?’

‘Lady Crispin is fully apprised, Your Grace.’

‘Mm. And I suppose Cousin Agatha is descendin’ upon us as well, as long threatened – she’s not likely to be put off, in any sense, by newer plans.’ His Grace was referring to the indomitable Lady Agatha Prothero-Fane – whose father had commonly been referred to at the Admiralty as ‘Pro-Fane’ by his exasperated superiors and whose uncle the bishop had not infrequently been the subject of Chapter puns ringing the changes upon _procul este profani_ –, who was rather a distant connexion, although the duke, in a deliberately Cranfordian manner, always hailed her as ‘Cousin Agatha’; and he was enabled to hail her regularly enough, Lady Agatha not being concerned to keep her geographic distance however distant their kinship. Despite living, by choice, in the wilds of Wye beyond Builth Wells – largely in order to keep a minatory eye upon the Royal Welsh Show year in and year out, and the Spring Festivals and Winter Fairs thereof: it was of course the Show which most mattered to her, and she was grimly determined that before she died, an event she intended to put off as long as possible, she _should_ by God win her personal trifecta of Supreme Champion Bull, Welsh Cob Senior Stallion, and Poultry, all in the same year for a change – despite living by choice in Wild Wales, she was regular in attendance at events, gatherings, jollifications, and family anniversaries in the Woolfonts, at whatever cost to her purse and her temper (and the nerves of railwaymen for Arriva and FGW, who were known to contemplate a sudden strike whenever they learnt Lady Agatha was boarding). She regarded six or seven hours on a train, first-class or no, as a martyrdom to be endured for the sake of its reward (although the railwaymen might dispute whether it was she or they who was being martyred): particularly as the train from Builth Road to her first change at Cardiff Central stopped, like a dog, at every post and pole from Cilmeri to Pantyffynnon, Llangennech to Bridgend. And so she, naturally, persevered, in the unshakeable conviction that Charles, let alone Rupert, James, and Hetty, not to mention the villagers, were in want of her experience and wisdom, unstoppered vials of which she was ready to pour out – in a voice notably audible even by field standards (she hunted with the Sennybridge Farmers _and_ the Irfon and Towy as seemed best to her) – quite unselfishly, without reserve, and without being asked. Indeed, after being begged to leave off.

Her stumpy, weather-beaten figure, accordingly, enhanced by her attitude towards dress and fashion – Lady Agatha tended to resemble at any distance an animated jumble stall held together by diamond brooches in want of cleaning – was familiar throughout the District by now, and she was tolerated with a grudging affection and a healthy respect.

It was hardly necessary to note that she had rarely missed a fête, or a Christmas, or a birthday for the children. Or the chance to barrack Charles regarding his mastership of the Duke of Taunton’s Hunt and how much better these things were done in Wales. Or, indeed, any opportunity to bring a great light to the people that walked in darkness.

She was really quite extraordinarily like her cousin Charles, in her way.

‘No doubt,’ observed that nobleman, ‘she’ll wish to carry our guests off to Wild Wales until they’ve learnt to sing after the manner of a Welsh male choir. Now: what of Shirley, Ian, Paul, Adele, and that Penniman chap? All turnin’ up? Excellent. God knows we’ve room enough. Oh, and Viney? Separate rooms for the Popular Beat Combo, in the best Edwardian tradition.’ What the duke meant by this, as Viney very well knew, was that the One Direction lads should be allotted bedrooms which, being separate, preserved the appearances, and which, being close one to the other, permitted whatever arrangements were in place to be gone on with discreetly, after dark, without any lengthy walks down corridors. Every house-party from the late XIXth Century on had followed that smooth-worn rule; and it was thus that Charles Taunton satisfied at once his Conservative conventionality and his more libertarian impulses.

‘The Dame – there is nothin’ like, and All That – ought I think be given the Eisenhower Room: she _is_ a bit grand, and she’s not an intimate – and as Paul is equally new to our ken and has a K, I suppose – were you thinkin’ of the Chinese Room? We’re of one mind, then.’

Viney hoped that their distinguished guest fell into the category of those who could in fact sleep a wink in the Chinese Room, which, unlike the common run of such essays in Orientalising décor (as at Belvoir or Badminton, say), was positively the platonic ideal of a Chinese Room, crowded thick with a cloud of witnesses in the form of life-size porcelain figures as well as the customary fantastic _chinoiserie_ fixtures. (The Wolfdown House Chinese Room has a sort of pale imitation in that of Claydon House, in Buckinghamshire far.) Some guests could bear it; some could not. Fr Noel Paddick, weather-bound for a night at Wolfdown House, had been given it once, and the only discernible result had been a special intention that week at Mass for the Church in China; a prior Chief Constable, by contrast, had broken within the hour and had had to be allotted instead the Gainsborough Room, even as the duke had made _sotto voce_ jokes regarding the imperial-yellow wallpaper.... It was, Viney considered, all a matter of character: and that His Grace intended to _test_ the characters equally of the band he was considering rescuing, and the partners he was contemplating in that enterprise, was the most inevitable thing in the world, really.

* * *

Stadium tours, red carpets, even Royals at the performance: nothing had prepared them – any more than had Irving’s and Jeff’s best shot at advice – for this, and they knew it. (The Azoffs had meant well, but … the whole reason the impasse wanted resolving by bringing in bigger and more British guns was, after all, that the Azoffs were handicapped by being, through no fault of their own, Americans, unfamiliar with the codes and shibboleths and inevitably to be found dropping bricks by the hod-full.) This was outwith their experience – five working-class lads who were proud not to be posh rahs – and they were increasingly aware of it: Harry anxiously, and anxious to make a good impression and befriend whom he might, as he always was; Louis with a cynical and sardonic smile backed by a reservoir of sark and stroppiness, prepared upon the least slight or offence to put on a metaphorical flat ’at, brandish the lead of a metaphorical whippet, and wax as belligerently Yorkshire as Geoff Boycott in a bate, bolshie and bloody-minded; Niall carelessly (feck, it wasn’t but only t’e _English,_ but); and Liam – naturally – with a trepidation that resolved itself, at bottom and as always, into the three motives ever present in him: the urgent wish to be liked; the determination that everyone else acknowledge, at least, the myriad wonders that were Zayn; and the resolve that the band should, so far as his duty and his efforts might go, profit by and succeed in its every endeavour. As for Zayn, who was attempting with little success to be inscrutable and appear imperturbable, he was quite frankly daunted, for reasons he neither wanted nor wished to elaborate, largely because he feared they’d be obvious soon enough.

And it was, after all, daunting, this jaunt. They’d some experience of being smuggled into venues – and out of them, and into other places altogether – but nothing at all like this, being ex- and infiltrated with SAS-style precision and secrecy from one end of England’s green and pleasant land to another, to this its most secret and hidden corner. That all this was in aid of meeting a duke who – with, they’d been warned, some unspecified potential associates they were also to meet – might create a management company for them to take on their UK and European side, and free them somehow (but _how?_ ) from Modest, was surreal. That it involved stopping in a ducal country house for a weekend (unlike the duke, none of the boys understood the subtle distinction between that term and ‘a Friday to Monday’) was bewildering. That the whole cloak, dagger, hole-and-corner affair also involved their baggage, which – madness – included dinner suits of the most boringly unimpeachable and wholly-unlike-their-style sort (Lou and Caroline alike had simply thrown their hands in the air and shaken their heads, which had not been a million miles from Niall’s reaction at learning he mightn’t wear trainers with the damn thing), was simply insane....

The nondescript white vans turned into the forecourt of a garage. No one was about, it seemed, in this small village-cum- _just_ -market-town. The boys and their baggage found themselves conveyed with swift efficiency into several sleek Bristols, each with a small, discreet crest and a coronet – a lion’s gamb issuant from a ducal coronet, in fact – painted upon the doors. Their accustomed security vanished; the pleasant, respectful, rather fatherly drivers (chief amongst these, had they known, the duke’s personal driver the ever-reliable Ponton, who for all his trained dignity had long earnt from the duke’s nephews the sobriquet of ‘the Stig’) politely saw them settled, and turned the bonnets of the Blenheims towards the deeper countryside.

In the lead motorcar, in which Niall, Zayn, and Liam were sunk at once in luxury and in bewilderment, Ponton was reassuring. ‘You young gentlemen are safely in His Grace’s country, now. No need to fret over security, or rumour, or that.’

* * *

In point of fact, it had been easy enough to find out about the duke and the Woolfonts: they had what amounted to a fandom, and had done since a near-murder by arson (from which the Rector had rescued Sher Mirza) had interested Fleet Street in the villages and their patron and his friends. Edmond Huskisson had been news before (and was not best pleased to be so again, although he’d seized the opportunity to bend it to his activist advantage): a promising striker outed on the day of the city derby, fouled, and blinded in one eye by things thrown from the terraces so that he was forced from his dreams and his profession, had naturally been news to the point he had buried himself, by the duke’s kindly leave in selling him the Chalkhills estate, in the obscurity of the Woolfonts far away (with his settlement for his injuries, the former Man City striker had been the largest hole in Man Utd’s budget for some years). And Teddy Gates was, as the Celebrated Hipster Chef and improprietor of The Woolford House Hotel with its galaxy of Michelin stars, not unknown to fame, any more than was The Breener, that Irish phenomenon who had been sent on an assisted place to Downside expressly to be moulded into and qualified for a spot on the England Test side (‘faith, t’e feyt’ers discerned a vocation in me, and why ought Eoin have all t’e fun?’) and who, after his knees packed it in, had become an ornament of TMS. (Nor had his subsequent marriage to the Hon. Gwen, daughter of a Welsh trainer given a life peerage for services to the Turf, tended to leave him in obscurity, although now that he and Gwen had an infant daughter he had become rabidly protective of their family privacy.)

But it had been the addition to the mix of Fr Paddick and of Sher, that impossibly handsome duo who were married in all save name and lovers in all save physicality, which had most piqued popular interest in the District and its people, Fleet Street and the Great British Public fascinated by and wholly unable to understand how two men of principle and conscience could decide, for themselves and without judging others, that three of the four loves – _storge, philia,_ and _agape_ – could suffice in the rejection of _eros._ (Nor did the Press and the paps fail to be endlessly transfixed and endlessly baffled by an Anglo-Catholic clergyman of unimpeachable orthodoxy and traditionalist views – the Woolfonts parishes were under Ebbsfleet’s visitation for a reason – and by a devout Muslim musicologist who happened, _academically,_ to be a leading authority on the English choral tradition generally and Anglican church and service music specifically.)

And of course, once the eye of the hack had been fixed upon the Woolfonts, Charles Taunton – that decorated Int Corps officer whose close-support doings in Iraq and Afghanistan were the subject of fantastic whispered rumour – scholar and linguist, became a sort of Classic British Character to many and a hero to not a few, always good for a solidly Thatcherite quote barracking the Cameroons, the Lib Dems, and Labour, and – credentials in hand – always available for a good, solid war of epigrams with the likes of Tristram Hunt and Amartya Sen. (The _Torygraph_ tended to wax orgasmic at having found, in their view, a sort of Roger Scruton with a title.)

It is hardly necessary to note that all this made the boys very uneasy indeed.

* * *

The Woolfonts and the District ’round – even unto Beechbourne and Chickmarsh (which, although the boys had yet to learn it, had been the scene of their transfer to the ducal Bristols) – were indeed as reliable, as fully loyal to Charles Taunton, as Ponton had said: the duke’s people regarded themselves as being just that, and regarded him with the affectionate and occasionally exasperated affection of the Sixth Form for the Headmaster with all his quirks and imitable eccentricities.

One could not, regrettably, say the same for each and every last member of the boys’ own security team, whose loyalties were in some cases not unnaturally divided between their charges … and management as their paymasters.

* * *

The life of the international pop star and Member of A Popular Beat Combo, M’Lud is not without its five-star and red-carpet moments. All the same, as the ducal Bristols decanted them at Wolfdown House, a mile on from the massy gates and the Lodge, the Palladian bridge over the carefully contrived stream through the park, and the avenue of oaks, all five of the boys could not but draw in a breath.

The Malets had done well out of the Conquest and better yet out of the Dissolution (aided, it could not be denied, by the fact that the then-abbott had been a Malet, who had cooperated with his cousin the Lord of the Manor in disposing of the Abbey lands which had marched upon the manor’s frontiers, and the Abbey church which had become the new parish church of SS Mary and Leonard Woolfont Abbas). Wolfdown House itself had always been a Malet holding, however. Of the old secular manor house in its Tudor iteration, although that in turn rested on Norman foundations, only the entrance and façade, with its Tudor bay window running from the first floor, above the great entrance, to the third, now remained – although the Dower House had been preserved externally as it had been built, a classic sample of pre-Tudor, Yorkist architecture without, with a perfect Jacobean interior. Wolfdown House itself, however, around its Tudor core, had grown and expanded by a process of organic accretion, rather as Brympton D’Evercy has done: here Jacobean, here Baroque, here Palladian – and, fortunately, had then stopped, just before the accession of William and Mary had brought the Dutch taste to England. It had a tendency to put guests upon their mettle, and urge them silently to pull their socks up.

‘Christ,’ said Louis. ‘We’re in a fooking Downton episode.’

Viney and his aunt Mrs Viney the Housekeeper, the parlourmaids, and the footmen, all On Parade, carefully affected not to have heard him. As for the man striding forrards now, he was not the sort to give a damn no matter what he heard: a small, neat, trim man who looked at least a decade younger than his years, with an absurdly large and _basso_ voice which he was not shy of deploying, as now as he welcomed them; keen blue eyes which rivalled Louis’ own for sharpness, bristling brows and moustaches, and conventionally floppy fair hair (thinning a trifle at the crown).

‘Right,’ said the duke, ‘here you are, then.’ He shot a keen look at The Tommo. ‘Tomorrow, I’ll take you all round this little place of mine. I can see you’ll appreciate it. You understand what domestic architecture ought to be, you do.’ He waited a beat for a response, and gave way to what they were soon to learn was one of the most reliable of ducal tics. ‘Grahame, damn it all – no one _reads_ Grahame, nowadays, it’s simply appallin’. Well, come along in, damn it, we’ll get you settled – tea or drinks in your rooms, and biscuits of course, I’m afraid that’s all we’ve time for, cannot get you on parade downstairs and presented first, there’s just time to get you played in and for you to dress for dinner – only _black_ tie, of course, I don’t ask full fig and orders – come along, don’t dawdle, damn it all, delighted to have you but we really _must_ keep to schedule....’

* * *

The boys had been warned. They’d been warned that the duke – that whirlwind of energy and former ornament of Int Corps, at once forceful and sly (although his aristocratic, don’t-give-a-damn plain speaking camouflaged his _suaviter in modo_ with an added layer of _fortiter in re_ ) – should have potential investors to meet them as he contemplated creating a new management company for them as a spin-off of the Taunton Estates. And they’d been warned, and had satisfied themselves, that the Woolfonts and its great and good did indeed merit the fandom which had grown up about it, smaller than but not dissimilar to their own, and driven in no small part by the coincidence that many of those great and good could pass, in a certain light, for the boys themselves with a decade or so on them.

The warnings had not, and could never have, been sufficient.

Suited and booted, they had come downstairs in highly conventional, although not bespoke, dinner suits which were anything but their usual pop star style: and found themselves through the looking-glass and down the rabbit hole in the world of the surreal.

The duke had made the presentations and introductions with his usual flair and innate grasp of precedence, carefully balancing rank and office; and all that the boys had been able to do was to smile blankly, keep their mouths from hanging open, and pinch themselves quietly. They were not used, for all that fame and fortune had brought them, to dining with a duke and his sister-in-law as hostess (and they’d an uneasy feeling that Lady Crispin at least knew it, although they misjudged her in this: she was, rather, taken aback by meeting in the flesh the idols of whom her daughter Hetty spoke incessantly); they were certainly not used to dining with such other guests as Charles Taunton had conjured. There was Church and State: the Bishop and his lady: Bishop Chubb, looking nothing of the sort but rather the heron at the pool, bearing up in exasperated conformity to the ducal wish in purple and apron and gaiters, the clerical equivalent to black tie; the much-tried Chief Constable and the much-tried Police and Crime Commissioner, with their wives (any Chief Constable and any Police and Crime Commissioner whose manor contains half the peerage, from dukes to Scottish lairds living for reasons which seem best to them in Wildest Wilts, has a right to look much-tried, and the more so when those dukes include Charles Taunton and indeed his cousin a few parishes over Kit Trowbridge and Warminster), with – like their host – their medals in miniature upon their jackets; the aproned Archdeacon, _et ux.;_ the Rector – snap! for Liam – Fr Noel Paddick SSC, in unrelieved Court black and clerical waistcoat, good plain cookery beside his RC friend and counterpart Mgr Folan with his dash of purple, apt to an Honorary Chaplain to His Holiness but disastrous with his ginger hair; Noel’s curate, Fr Paul Campion SSC, a young Jonny Wilkinson in a clerical collar to Noel’s beneficed Becks and Mgr Folan’s unnerving likeness to Ed Sheeran; Teddy Gates _ex officio_ as local councillor, and his partner Edmond Huskisson, the former Man City striker, beside him (snap! for Haz and Tommo); by rank, and wholly to Zayn’s tongue-tied awe, TH the Nawab and Begum of Hubli, he in a black-on-grey sherwani lined with the MCC colours and she resplendent this time in a Western gown and tiara; the duke’s kinswoman Lady Agatha, in a confectionery gown the late Queen Mum should have coveted, all frills and furbelows; Sir Thomas Douty, Bt, conventionally monochrome; the Nawab’s cousin and brother-in-law, the Begum’s brother, Alam Mirza with his wife Emily, Alam the designated successor to the personal nawabate, with his OBE shining in the candlelight; the Rector’s parents, solid and stolid and no-nonsense; a lanky QC whose name the boys did not catch but who was apparently the Attorney-General for something or other, which was bewildering; the Hon. Gwen and Mr Brian Maguire OBE (snap! went the Breener for Niall); Lewis Salmon OBE and his wife Melanie; and the heir apparent to the Nawab’s heir apparent, Sher Mirza (snap! – and breathtakingly so – for Zayn).

Yet more surrealistically were there other guests, the warned-of potential partners of the duke in any management company he might set up to rescue the boys by, interspersed according to rank in the introductions, each of whom left the boys speechless even when they had met them before: Dame Shirley Bassey, ageless, a galaxy glittering upon earth and the object of the occasional ducal look of frank appreciation; Sir Paul McCartney; Ian Anderson MBE (whom the duke, a Tull fan of old, had often called his favourite neighbour); Adele Adkins MBE; and young Mr Penniman: Mika. Harry for one found himself forced _not_ to down an excess of the ducal sherry simply to steady himself.

Like a wise old sheepdog with a fractious flock, the duke wasted no time at all in chivvying all concerned into order, and in they went to dinner, the duke taking in Dame Shirley, Lady Crispin on Macca’s arm (conveniently, TH the Nawab and Begum of Hubli were effectively counted as members of the family), and after them the rest in their due order, the boys’ heads awhirl and Louis, specially, bricking it over forks and spoons and the pitfalls of etiquette.

* * *

Modest, alert to rumour, was deciding whether HM or Richard ought to be the partner to go down to Darkest Wiltshire and spy out the land, and catch, if he could, the boys in breach or potential breach of contract.

* * *

Lady Agatha turned to Liam, on her left, and addressed him in a voice which was kindly enough, if suited for drowning out the whole of Hunt, hound, horse, and horn over the length of the field. ‘Much to be said for dressin’ for dinner, young man: I can tell at once you’re the singer and not Charles’ Rector. Amusin’ in its way, one supposes, you meetin’ a near doppelgänger, but not, perhaps, conducive to an easy mind at dinner. Now, tell me....’

* * *

‘So, tell me, young Styles – any of you lot … well, obviously not Horan or Malik … any of you lot raised C of E, at all? Because knowing Taunton, if you’re all even _nominally_ RC, he’ll give us all a lecture on the North and the Pilgrimage of Grace: _never_ dine with an historian if you can evade the duty.’

* * *

HH the Begum’s eyes flashed. ‘It could be so much worse,’ she murmured, confidentially, to a Zayn who sat frozen with terror. ‘I have seen them at Speech Day at the Free School, recreating Formal Hall at their beloved Oxford and all in gowns and hoods. You men do love to dress up.

‘It’s not, you know, a moral obligation to eat turbot – even with _sauce vénitienne_ – if you don’t actually care for it,’ added she, nodding at his plate. ‘Or – between us – to choose the _halal_ options the duke always provides: _I’m_ not marking you, and the Family … well, there are _public_ examples to set, and then there’s private life. My sister-in-law, bless her … well, she’d be shocked, _I_ think, she tries very hard to be the perfect Muslim wife and mother, as converts _will_ do –’ the Begum, like the duke, was not one not to tread on toes, or to care if she did do – ‘and my nephew is not so much overly devout at table as he is nostalgic for the foods of his childhood and the special treats he finds these to be. But I’d as soon not go bail that the spag bol he, his father, _and_ his uncle dote on hasn’t the traditional pancetta mixed in with the beef – not that the overwhelming courtesy everyone shows allows that ever to happen _here,_ the Rector’s housekeeper and the duke’s cook and Teddy Gates at the hotel’d rather cut off their hands than offend – as they’d think it – in that way.

‘But, young man, I will tell you, now, what _is_ a moral obligation.’ HH the Begum, Nasreena Syed Mirza MVO in her own right for her many charities and services, was living up very much, now, to the duke’s character of her as ‘Mrs T in silks and a shalwar’. ‘You see the duke, bustling about with what I make certain seems impossible energy. Well: I have known Charles Taunton for many years, he’s been my husband’s best friend since they were at Eton – and on the Eton XI. And he is running on half-speed now – yes, I do mean that his energy at full is positively demonic. The two most important men in this community are in this room, the duke and the Rector, and both are recovering from illness. Charles had a heart attack last year, and a triple bypass; and the Rector.... I know: it’s surreal, I make sure, to see a man who could almost be your Liam – don’t startle, young man, anyone with eyes has you two sussed – a decade on, and almost gaunt: well, my nephew, your near-double, my dear, has been specially solicitous of the Rector, although, being who and what they are, _they_ have never so much as kissed – you needn’t blush and fidget, child, no one is making comparisons to your disadvantage or condemning you and your Liam, the two of _you_ after all are not the local Christian priest and the heir to the heir to a nawabate – the Rector, then, is recovering from what we had first feared was a _neurological_ issue which was causing him to fall down and that sort of thing, you’ll see he even now uses a stick when tired and there were months when he wanted a Zimmer frame, and everyone bar Charles was afraid he’d be forced to give over his ministry. And so it is a moral obligation, binding on you and your bandmates, whatever decision you make, to recognise and appreciate at least that Charles Taunton, in so much as _considering_ taking you on, is doing something which is in its way a sacrifice to him.’

* * *

The Hon. Gwen surveyed Niall with a grin. ‘The Breener – oh, yonks ago, in his playing days, when _you’d_ have been in small-clothes – had an episode of all that tips-and-dye. Mind, cricketers are a superstitious lot, and he had the excuse, at least, of hoping to follow in the footsteps of Shane Warne and KP. What in God’s name are _you_ thinking?’

Niall’s comical look of heartbroken affront in response sent her into peals of laughter she tried vainly to smother in her napkin.

* * *

Lady Crispin, who was very fond of the Hon. Gwen (not least because Gwennie could be relied on, as proprietress of the Woolbury Stud and daughter of a racing peer, to divert Hetty to Hetty’s other and much less vexing enthusiasm: as a mother, Lady Crispin was _much_ happier to see her daughter distracted rather by horses than by boys), smiled indulgently and bent her attention upon an uncommonly subdued, not to say daunted, Tommo.

‘One can only imagine the amusement dear Gwen is taking from having a junior version of her husband to mock gently. It must be rather a shock for you lads to come here and find that _The_ Lads, as they’re known simply for _miles_ about, might well be yourselves a decade or more on: wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey is, I gather from my sons, the phrase?’ Her brother-in-law the duke had not erred in his declaration that Lady Crispin was, at bottom, a Joyce Grenfell comic turn, made specially comic by her refusal to recognise the fact and by her utter humourlessness.

‘I do hope,’ said she, ‘that – if you and Charles reach an agreement – your freedom to be yourself takes a less tiresomely _activist_ turn than has Edmond Huskisson’s. I’ve nothing against the little man, and of course one supports his causes and justice and all that, but he has a _most_ appalling habit of forgetting who his lover and friends actually are – I don’t mean he plays away or betrays Teddy in any way – he forgets that people are people, with private lives and private interests, and repeatedly treats them as counters on a political game-board. Quite frankly, although he’s far less ruthless than Charles, it’s one of the reasons he and Charles, fond though they are of one another, get on so poorly at times, they’re _far_ too much alike. Of course, that’s the sort of thing you young men are in want of from Charles, isn’t it.’

‘M- – my lady –’

‘Oh, do call me “Constance”, Louis.’

‘Er. Yes. I don’t _understand._ Mr Hales-Owen suggested –’

‘Yes, of course: Simon was at Eton with Charles, and Nobby, and Flops – that’s the Archdeacon – and with my late husband, for that matter. Bit of a clot, Simon, as a schoolboy, so of course he’s made an excellent man of law: appalling profession, really. But he’s quite right that Charles is who you want to take on that management of yours if indeed they are past bearing: and any allies of theirs or parties with common interests, from the, ah, label to the PR sorts to, ah, Syco itself, although I should think the last has the cleanest hands here.’

‘But _why?_ ’

‘Ah. People – and I include half the peerage and not a few dukes – have the oddest idea of what a duke does and must do nowadays. Charles is one of those who really can and does run his estates (which even Kit _tries_ to do, although I must say it’s as well he took up with Methwold and Swaffham as his second, Christopher has _no_ sense, really): and it shouldn’t in the least surprise me if, before he dies, Charles passes Bedford _and_ the Grosvenors. And not only the Estate as a whole, but in detail: Teddy Gates may run, and, now, own the larger holding in, the Hotel, and certainly it’s his work has made it what it is, Michelin stars and all, but Charles put all that in train, you know. And, yes, part of it is pull, and deploying the title when wanted, but: _our_ village concerts, and fêtes, and pantos, do in fact enjoy the services of everyone from Madness or British Sea Power or Cliff Richard or Brian May, to Ronnie Corbett and Ken Dodd and Lee Mack, you know. Charles is more than capable of flannelling, oh, Ken Branagh into playing the dame in the panto for scale – and then donating _that._ He _has_ done. Now, I know what you’re going to say, and you’re wrong, because not only has Charles long been the one who’s signed performers for concert and fête and cleared the rights and all that sort of thing, it’s down to Charles that The Fonts exist, and if you’ve _not_ done your homework, you can look them out on YouTube.

‘And of course there’s the other aspect, as well. Your present management – and _what_ an odd name for the firm: they seem by all accounts impertinent, impudent, imprudent, and _assuredly_ immodest – may have a great deal of power in their industry, I’m sure _I_ don’t know, but they can hardly resist the power of the Establishment. Jonathan, after all, is not dining with us for his health – oh: I make sure you were introduced: the Attorney-General for the Duchy of Cornwall. Always useful to have extra investors, isn’t it.’

Louis was, for once, utterly speechless.

* * *

The boys had in fact done, in Lady Crispin’s terms, their homework; and Harry at least knew who The Fonts were. Rather uneasily so. It is odd enough to see what might so easily pass as themselves in a decade performing Northern Soul classics – with an added ducal _basso_ – and selling charity singles quite successfully for the Coal Charity and the Rector’s Discretionary Fund and what not; it is unnerving to find oneself conceding they might, actually, be a trifle better at the job than oneself and one’s own band, and to see how many quite serious musicians, from Adele herself to Brian May, were always willing to join them for a charity gig and to praise them to the skies.

Mrs Paddick, the Rector’s mum, who in voice and motherly comfortableness at least might have been Karen Payne all over again, patted Harry’s hand. ‘Now, then, after all the duke’s done for Our Kid, yow and the other boys can be easy, he’ll do right by thee.’

* * *

‘You,’ said the duke, with a cheeky grin, ‘had made a rampageous duchess. Where were you when I was young?’

Had Dame Shirley had a fan, she’d have tapped him with it. ‘Twenty-five years your senior, Charles Taunton,’ said she, dry as Beaune. ‘Flirt with Adele on your other side, darling, I’m too old for your charm.’

The duke’s raised eyebrow provoked a snort from beside him. ‘And I,’ said Adele, ‘am too young and too happy with my own Old Etonian. Although, to your credit, you crusted old Tory, you’re at least a Spurs supporter.’

* * *

‘So, Charles,’ called Ian down the table, ‘are you deeming this a mess night?’

The duke smiled. ‘Temptin’, but I think I’ll not relax the rule against singin’ at table _tonight._ Shouldn’t wish any of you to feel obliged to sing for your suppers – no one sings for a _livin’_ hereabouts bar the clergy.’

* * *

‘You’re quite fortunate, really,’ said Lady Crispin over the game and salad: ‘it’s mostly the Welsh connexions tonight. When the Scots contingent descends upon us, Charles – and the Police and Crime Commissioner, bless his pompous old soldier’s heart – the silly sods invariably get up a postprandial round of Highland and Scottish Country Dancing. Positive ceilidh, really: and dear Badenoch always does bring his personal piper, the Badenochs have never really reconciled themselves to reverting to a marquessate. Reels, I find, are well enough, and the Gay Gordons, even The Dashing White Sergeant, but when they wax competitive in a Strip the Willow and strive for ever faster times, well, the SJA lot and the A&E at the Cottage Hospital want to be on alert. Balmoral have nothing on this lot, really. And when it’s S Andrew’s Day, _well_ ! Frightful, absolutely – it truly _is_ “Too Long in this Condition”.’

Louis wisely made a purely conventional and non-committal reply, although his eyes were far too wide to disguise his perplexity and air of moving in worlds not realised.

* * *

Melanie Salmon smiled. It was a motherly smile. It unnerved Liam all the same.

‘When Tom Douty found himself a widower – Lew and I were yet living in London then, Lew’s uncle Bennett – the RA, you know – had the house then which he afterward left to Lew, here – it was Noel’s first service, actually, in his new living, Caroline’s funeral … well: _when_ Lady Douty had died, Tom was at a bit of a loose end. Then Noel, supported by the lads, had a Bright Idea: Charles really is a happy anorak and makes no bones about it. You might ask about, whilst you’re stopping here, about how Tom and Charles – who’d not got on previous – ended by creating the heritage railway, and, since then, the community-owned real ale brewery and all manner of enterprises. Tom, like Lew, was a City gent in his day, and of course Charles, as a duke, was never In Trade; but believe me, dear, when I say, Charles Taunton could run rings around the greatest of tycoons, merchant princes, and financiers. And when it’s necessary to be sly, and to use his pull and position and peerage title: well, ask about, and find out, won’t you, how he diddled the Government and the Opposition alike into the new social housing for old soldiers and their families. He’s really rather talented: and with The Lads behind him, and Tom and Lew on call, and of course Viney – who is a complete Jeeves – and Simon Kellow down the Boar.... Hard to credit, sometimes, that he’s a Gentile, actually.’

* * *

The duke – when he wished to make a point, set a test, or devise an ambush, which were, really, his primary hobbies – could be masterful in balancing convention and ease. In accordance with immemorial custom of the frostiest sort, the ladies did, actually, withdraw as the gentlemen lingered; yet by the time the port – the 1863 port – was being circulated, let alone the pippins and nuts devoured, the Loyal Toast given, or the smoking lamp lit, the gentlemen were free to join the ladies as they listed. Zayn and Louis hastened to do so, too nervous of the possible consequences to drink and talk freely (and not daring to smoke cigars), entrusting themselves to the kindly shepherding of the Archdeacon and Fr Paddick’s dad; and Zayn had shot Liam a look which all but commanded him to stop at one glass and follow soon after. Harry and Niall, seduced by cheeses and fruits and nuts quite as much as by the decanter, lingered for a little longer, but even they were on their best behaviour, feeling themselves beset by watchful judgement. As of course they were.

Within half an hour, all of the boys had gravitated – led by Mr Paddick, who knew what boys were, and by a beaming Sir Thomas Douty – to the Brunel Room, where, as Mr Paddick and Sir Tom knew from their own experience, they’d lose themselves readily and for as long as they were allowed, brandy to hand and caps on their heads. _Railwaymen’s_ caps.

For the Brunel Room was at once the unlikeliest and the most typically _Charles_ of all the rooms Wolfdown House might boast. The old pile possessed limewood carved by Grinling Gibbons, the famous Chinese Room, the best Long Gallery in the Three Kingdoms (‘and the Principality’, as Lady Agatha should have said, loyally), grand staircases that shamed Sudbury Hall and murals by Laguerre (as Charles rather tiresomely always said, _‘C’est Laguerre’_ ) and painted ceilings by Angelica Kauffman; it could claim a Music Room which was in the course of the next days to leave the boys bereft of articulate speech; but the Brunel Room was the duke’s personal pride. For there, throwing into the shade the plastered ceiling by Robert Adam and the railway-themed Frith and two Cuneos and a Newbould that shouldered in amongst the ancestors and their horses and hounds on the walls, was His Grace’s celebrated Scalefour Great Western layout, hugely vast, superbly accurate, and impeccably modelled – and, nowadays, the ducal Scalefour model of the Woolfonts & Chickmarsh Railway, that steam, heritage railway the duke and Sir Thomas had resurrected, micro-franchised, and made, as a Community Rail Partnership, at once an attraction and an indispensable transport link. That, Steve Paddick and Tom Douty both intended, was to be an object lesson to the young band-members, and an example....

* * *

The duke himself, circulating discreetly and popping when wanted into the billiards room, the library, and the dining room where the hardened luxuriated over pippins, pears, and port, was collecting impressions. Zayn and Louis had been perfectly right in thinking they’d been set a test and were beset by keen-eyed judges.

Dame Shirley gave the duke a very old-fashioned look on that score. ‘I think,’ said she, ‘they’ve done _quite_ well. If I’d been dropped at that age into this sort of evening, to sink or swim, I’d have gone straight back to waiting tables in a Cardiff dockside pub.’

The duke smiled. ‘“The sailors say, ‘Brandy, you’re a fine girl’” –’

‘Oh, _really,_ Charles. You’re a brute in your way. But if they’ve passed a brute’s muster – and I think they’ve done....’

* * *

Rather amusing, really, thought Lady Crispin, the way in which the members of (God save us) her daughter’s idolised boyband gravitated towards their near-doubles. It was perfectly obvious that – Zayn, wasn't it? And Liam? – were a couple, and the curly-haired span’el and the Yorkshire pixie; whereas the Irish boy’s roving eye … _well._ It could do nothing but good to have Zayn and Liam spend time in converse with the Rector – sitting in a chair, poor dear, and clearly exhausted, but, there, dear Sher was dancing devoted attendance on him – and with that same Sher as well: although the band boys were hardly under the same constraints of chastity and celibacy as dear Sher and dear Fr Noel. (All in black, Noel, but, reflected Lady Crispin, brightly glowing and filled with light; and if he lived, as she most assuredly hoped he should, he’d be in a red cassock the moment he was old enough in service to be made a Queen’s Honorary Chaplain, or she missed her guess....) As for – yes, Harry and Louis, that was it: she knew she’d get it eventually – as for Harry and Louis, well, she supposed little enough harm should come of their forgathering with dear Teddy and dear Edmond so long as Teddy and Harry were banging on about – good heavens – bananas and baking. And the Irish one – Niall, that was it: Niall – was rapt in converse with The Breener and dear Gwennie and wry, wise Mgr Folan, so _that_ was _quite_ all right.

And of course they couldn’t come to much harm, really, drifting away irresistibly every quarter of the hour to play with Charles’s toy trains.

* * *

The duke had gathered by now a consensus. They weren’t notably pricks, as Melanie Salmon amongst others had subtly assayed. They’d kept sober and used the correct forks. They did seem to be serious about their jobs and their … well, music, he supposed, although by God he’d l’arn ’em some music if he took them on. They’d been rather bashful than bumptious, which was better than the converse, although he’d had hopes of better; but they’d not been _too_ daunted: he could work with that.

Lew and Tom had been satisfied, and willing to go in for a share if the judgement by Monday had had no cause to change; Mika and Adele approved them and were down for a share apiece; Macca, Ian, and Dame Shirley were amenable to two shares each. The Bish and Flops (the Archdeacon had not outlived his school nickname so far as Charles, who’d been his fellow at their prepper – Hawtreys when it _was_ Hawtreys and not, as the duke said, ‘the second growth of Château Cheam, nowadays’ – Eton, and Oxford, was concerned) approved them; The Lads and Gwennie had embraced them; the CC and the Commissioner knew nothing against them in _this_ country; the Begum had no objection to them; and Nobby was ready to join Charles as a general partner in any management company he might set up for them, a judgement backed by Alam, who was the warmest businessman of all of them.

Provisionally, the duke was inclined to come to their rescue after all.

* * *

At last the captains and the kings had departed, and the house party dispersed to their beds.

As Zayn observed, marvelling, these were magnificent – not least the four-poster in Liam’s rooms, conveniently next his; and for all the strain and uncertainty of the day, and the want to be on their best behaviour, nor he nor Liam was inclined not to test its sturdiness as well as its comfort. After all, Liam had spent the evening more or less tongue-tied; it was time his wicked, cunning tongue be given free rein by his eager lover, to be followed by rather more....

* * *

 

 


	2. A fair, cheap, and easy method

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The thick plottens.... Well, thickies plot, at any rate.

* * *

The boys, bar Niall, came down to breakfast rather gingerly: less for physical reasons than from the unease attendant upon their not having realised that they should wake to find baths drawn, tea and milky drinks and other restoratives on trays, and the general evidence that the servants had stolen into and out of their rooms before they’d parted and gone back to their own (in which likewise the impeccable and discreet services had been performed). They were, in short, busted, and knew it with no small alarm.

As it happened, of course, the clamantly evident fact that Zayn had spent the night with Liam and Louis with Harry was unremarked and apparently forgotten or disregarded by everyone save the boys themselves. They had a good deal to learn about house parties amongst the upper classes.

The duke bustled in, with the air of a man who’d been up and about for hours – which he had, having already despatched Estate business, taken a inspector’s tour of all things, and managed a swim – and beamed tweedily upon them. ‘Mornin’. After brekker, we’ll convey y’ to see the village sights, from Abbas to Magna – the Hotel, the Stud, the parish churches, the pitch. I wish you, please, to stick with your, ah, avatars, and be ready to jump when I say. Bit of Boxin’ and Coxin’ may be wanted. You’ll see why, soon enough. And then this afternoon I’ll show you the Music Room – it’s rather ’straordinary.’

Modest might have its means of getting vague intel of what was afoot; but it was nothing to the ducal resources – and resourcefulness.

‘Damn me, ’m I the only one eats devilled kidneys? Remarkable. There’s more black puddin’ if you like, Horan, don’t be shy. How are we all for tea?’

* * *

The ducal programme was, naturally, effected precisely as the duke intended. He had insisted on directing the boys’ wardrobe choices, as well: so that the party which descended upon the Woolfonts did not much resemble One Direction from a distance.

When they reached their first stop on the tour, The Woolford House Hotel (from which, it was clear, breakfast or no breakfast, Niall was going to require forcible removal, and possibly chains to keep him out of the kitchens), it began to dawn upon the boys just what Charles Taunton was playing at.

There was a motorcar on the opposite verge, and it was perfectly obvious that in that car was a man with a camera and lenses a pap should covet. And Teddy Gates, the Celebrated Hipster Chef and proprietor of The Woolford, was wearing a shirt – half-buttoned – and a hat which made him a dead ringer at twenty paces for one Styles H; and Edmond Huskisson had easily won the Tommo-Lookalike contest at any gay bar on any Halloween in any year.

* * *

In accordance with the canons of the C of E, Fr Noel Paddick SSC was very rarely seen in anything other than cassock and biretta (the parishes of the combined benefice being, like their ducal patron, Higher than a stack of Tractarians); but those same canons provided for mufti when, say, taking the CLGB for sport events, or mucking in in the churchyard, which Noel did for his sanity (his Nan, in Pensnett, had passed on her green-handed love of gardening) and as a necessity, Snook the Sexton being the laziest and most lead-swinging example of work-shyness in the three parishes. The motorcar with the snap-happy cameraman within got several good, if distant, shots of Fr Paddick in St Aldhelm Churchyard, Woolfont Crucis, and him in a vest and a bobble-hat, boots and denims, with a plaid shirt tied ’round his waist (and a weeding fork just discernible in one hand, if one squinted).

* * *

Sher Mirza was not much of a drinker – not least because a master at the Free School has a certain example to set – and was notoriously well-turned-out (male-model that he might so easily have been in any case) during the week; but Saturdays were his to do with as he listed. It was not much cop to have pap-snapped him from afar, arm over the Breener’s shoulders, coming out of the Blue Boar in Magna after taking, as their elevenses, one of Mr Kellow’s real ale pints and one of his house-made chicken pies.

* * *

‘Ah: landlord. A pint of –’

‘Gerrout.’

‘I beg your –’

Mr Simon Kellow, Sole Prop. of the Blue Boar (named loyally for one of the supporters in the ducal arms) was a massive man (he kept wicket for the 2d XI, and the duke was wont to note that nothing got past him whether he moved for the ball or not – and that if all else failed, they could always use him for the screen), and perfectly capable of daunting truculence.

‘Oi zaid, “Get thi out”.’ Mr Kellow had also spent so much of his life playing up to the expectations of tourists and trippers, as a rural West Country publican, that he was no longer actually capable of _not_ sounding like an extra in _Hot Fuzz._ ‘Oi don’t want the loikes o’ thi in moi house.’

* * *

The licensee of licensed premises has, of course, the right to toss anyone at all out on his ear, and ban him, for any reason or none. Now, The Woolford, like the Boar, was licensed premises.

‘Do you know who I am? I am Richard Griffiths –’

‘Quite,’ said Emily Lane, the sub-manageress. She was a sharp, sensible woman, rather like the more fearsome sort of aunt, and insisted upon remaining _sub_ -manageress because (and only because) The Woolford’s stars depended (absurdly, but that was foodie politics for you) in no small part upon Teddy Gates’ being seen to be the proprietor, manager, chef, and presiding genius thereof. In fact, as everyone was well aware, it was Emily Lane ran the place, at the end of the day, and damned well. ‘Not, regrettably, the late actor of that name, who _was_ always welcome as a booking here. You are at least old enough you may have seen _Casablanca_ at some point, however: so it cannot surprise you that Chef Gates’ rule, in dealing with the sort who plays the “do you know who I am” card, is to allow such persons one drink in the bar before tossing them out: or as Rick told the German banker, We know who you are, and you’re lucky the _bar’s_ open to you.’

‘I –’

‘Hullo,’ said a deep, reverberant, and Wotan-ly grim sort of voice from behind him. ‘Griffith of Modest, is it not?’

Richard turned about in haste. There was a smallish man in bespoke tweeds; two taller men who were clearly in mufti; and … a ringer, dressed in very familiar attire, for that little bugger Styles.

‘May I ask, you contemptible little bastard, what you mean by bumblin’ about my country, taking illicit snaps of Chef Gates, here, and the Rector gardenin’ in the churchyard – our sexton’s worse than useless – and The Breener Maguire and Sher Mirza and Edmond Huskisson? I’ll take that film, or the camera if it’s digital, by the way.’

‘Like hell you will – and how dare you call me –’

‘My name’s Taunton. _You_ shall address me as, “Your Grace”, God damn you. And as it happens, there are very few square feet – I’m damned if I’ll use Frog measure – of the land you can see in any direction of which I am not the freehold proprietor, and I don’t permit this sort of thing. Oh – Tommy Labourde here is the Chief Constable; Lachlan Duff-Black, the Police and Crime Commissioner. I am of course a magistrate and a DL, and damned right I am giving you in charge.’

* * *

The boys, scarce able to stifle their awed laughter, and the grinning Lads, followed His Grace happily as he strode down the corridor past the Adam-designed Etruscan Room.

The great doors swung open by no visible agency as the footmen magically effaced themselves.

‘Come along,’ said the duke, crisply, crossing the threshold. ‘This _is_ the –’ and as he entered the high and spacious room, marmoreal as himself, and chastely gilt, the timbre of his voice changed, taking on yet newer and richer overtones and harmonics – ‘the Music Room, after all.’

Louis whistled, and was startled by the sound. ‘How – the acoustics – you must’ve spent –’

‘Good God, man,’ said the duke, ‘it’s not modern. Or scientific: all a matter of feel. Wadham won’t admit it, but this does in fact predate the Holywell Music Room – Archer ran it up the year before the Fifteen, for the second duke. Henry “the Trimmer” – appallin’ shit, he really was, betrayin’ kings and friends was positively his hobby. Mind, Archer didn’t _finish_ the commission until 1730 or so – whereas the agèd Wren, who started in on redoin’ the Chapel in the same year, 1714, was done in no time – but even that puts us ahead of Wadham. Which, I havin’ been up at the House, pleases me, I admit. All the same, it is rather brill, isn’t it? There was a music-industry “suit” thought so, in his day, and that tweeny prodigy.’

The Rector shook his head. ‘Charles is referring, I think it right to tell you, to Handel and Mozart, respectively, both of whom performed in this room.’

Liam’s gulp was admirably audible: wonderful acoustics, the Music Room had.

* * *

‘I don’t know, HM, he’s not answering.’

* * *

‘Right,’ said the duke. ‘We’re – ah. Here they are. Come in, come in.’ Dame Shirley and Sir Paul, Adele and Mika and Ian Anderson with his flute, swept in and joined them.

‘Now,’ said the duke, ‘what we’re goin’ on with is this. We’re startin’ with what I am told are called “mash-ups” – sounds like potatoes to me, but there you have it. I am not going to make them easy. We of The Fonts’ll fill in where wanted – Sher can play stride-piano, as we lack a band, to the standard of Mrs Mills or Winifred Atwell, so _that’s_ all right.

‘You’ll have five minutes each to work out keys and parts and where it all comes together: no more. Paul, I’ll let you start with the young idea here, as this _is_ the easiest, I think. So, gentlemen: “Act My Age” and “When I’m Sixty-Four”. Best of British luck.’

* * *

‘Look, sunshine, all we want’s an explanation. Then we can discuss police bail.’

* * *

‘Mm. All right. This ought, surely, to go better,’ said the duke. ‘Let’s try, oh … “Forever Young” and –’ he gave a little bow to Dame Shirley – ‘“Diamonds Are Forever”.’

‘I am _not,_ ’ murmured Adele, ‘doing ruddy “Skyfall”, Your-Double-Oh-Grace.’

The duke winked.

* * *

‘Well, sunshine, that’s the thing, isn’t it. If you’re determined to keep shtum, we must draw our own conclusions. And the use of long lenses to snap strangers doesn’t help your case, now, does it.’

* * *

‘Right. Well. Mr Penniman? Can you take the boys in hand for a mash-up of “Big Girl (You Are Beautiful)” and “What Makes You Beautiful”, d’ y’ think?’

* * *

‘Sergeant, I think Chummy’s earnt a cuppa.’

* * *

By now, the boys were embarrassed, humiliated, and almost ready to cry tears of frustration.

‘Now, it’s not _that_ bad,’ said the duke, intolerably. ‘Adele, m’ dear? What say you? “Hometown Glory” and “Don’t Forget Where You Belong”?’

* * *

‘Right, then, we’ll bail you to – Sergeant, bring me the calendar, will you?’

* * *

‘Last one, gentlemen, I assure you. I do realise it’s been difficult. Ian? Have you heard their “Through the Dark”? Yes. Well. With “Fire at Midnight”, I think. It’s not, actually, _meant_ to work, but see how you go, eh?’

* * *

‘Richard! I’ve been trying to ring you –’

‘I’ll discuss it once I’m back at the office, Harry.’

* * *

‘All right, gentlemen,’ said the duke. ‘I’ll tell you at once I was being monstrously unfair. You may relax now. Teddy? I think we might put ourselves, Font-wise, through our paces. You may as well serenade Edmond....’

That, certainly, was no novelty, nor had been since the memorable Village Concert when – indulging Mr Kellow down the Boar and his rather unlikely love of Northern Soul amidst the West Country corn – The Lads and the Duke had mounted a Northern Soul set and first formed together The Fonts as a group, with Charles’ _basso_ shifting the foundations of the village hall. And, as on that première night, Teddy was always ready to growl and shimmy at a delighted Edmond to the strains of the Junior Walker version of ‘I Ain’t Going Nowhere (Unless I Go With You)’ – a song specially noted in the Woolfonts as having furnished the text of the Rector’s sermon, the famed ‘Northern Soul Sermon’, upon a never-forgotten Sunday after Trinity, the Lesson being from the Book of Ruth, the First Chapter.

Equally, what had long since become Edmond’s song, in response, ‘How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved By You)’, was not something Edmond was shy of performing. (Harry and Louis were rapt, watching – and envying – the two.)

Sher, when it was his turn, balked. ‘Charles, that’s Noel’s song, really.’

‘Noel,’ said the duke, ‘has a wet pillow to deal with, so don’t be a wet blanket.’

With a long, considering look, Sher at last nodded, and launched into ‘(Your Love Keeps Lifting Me) Higher and Higher’, to which Zayn especially, and Liam, listened slack-jawed; followed, with a fond smile, by the Rector, who for once took on a different Jackie Wilson tune: ‘Lonely Teardrops’. The Breener rounded things off with ‘Beyond the Sea’, Bobby Darin being a particular hero of The Breener’s and Northern Soul purism be damned.

The duke smiled. ‘And now, I think,’ said he, ‘a bit of showing off....’ He nodded to Teddy and Sher, who began to ‘Shake’, as it were, ‘a Tail Feather’ – and at a nod modulated it, after the first chorus, into a folk ballad which might have been collected by Vaughan Williams. As they held a long, open vowel, the duke and the rest of The Lads joined in, in harmony, and segued into a madrigal version of ‘Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me’ followed by a straight-up version – with Dame Shirley roped in – of ‘Then Came You’.

His Grace took a deep breath – his wind was not _quite_ what it had been before his heart bypass. ‘Now, my fine young gentlemen. Tell me. The Azoffs are already working towards securing your release from Modest, and – so far as rights and management abroad are concerned – are succeeding. So far as the UK market is concerned, you are, I gather, stymied at least until the Autumn of next year. Now – Huskisson, keep your mouth shut – now, gentlemen, is there a reason beyond merely wishing to come out – Edmond, I warn you – why you cannot possess your souls in patience for rather less than a year, but must go to war _now_ at any cost?’

Liam replied before anyone else (Louis, for choice) might do. ‘Yeah. Because we can’t do _that,_ and – I’ve not been so humiliated in me life, and, well, you’ll know I’ve had me humiliations. But. We can’t _do_ that, what you just did, and we looked fools earlier, and. Yeah.’

‘In other words,’ said the duke, gently, with a smile quite as gentle, ‘you recognise you’ve been limited and had your potential choked off all so as better to control you, and – the ladies shall I hope forgive me this – have been altogether fucked-over by those sods.’

‘ _Yes,_ ’ said Louis.

‘And you are willing to work like buggery to change that.’

‘ _Oh,_ yes,’ said Harry, decidedly.

‘And to say farewell to your niche and to easy genres and laziness and general ignorance.’

‘Try us.’ Zayn’s tone was challenging.

‘It may hurt. It may hurt _sales –_ in the short term. Personal and musical growth isn’t easy, or for the faint-hearted.’

‘And when t’e feck were _we_ ever t’at?’ Niall was outright scoffing.

The duke’s grin was blinding. And, from Modest’s perspective, had the poor sods been able to see it, feral and terrifying. ‘In that case, gentlemen … we’ve a deal.’

‘What,’ asked Macca, ‘are we calling the new management company? Just so I can tell my chartered accountant.’

‘Why not … Clumber. Clumber Management.’

‘For your spaniels.’ Ian was suppressing a grin.

‘My dear man, after the Newcastles more or less died out – nothing against Lincoln, mind – we’ve more or less taken on responsibility and patronage for the breed.’

Mika caught Louis’ eye, shook his head, and winked.

* * *

‘Get Will. I’d as soon only tell this story once.’

* * *

The boys had been left to their own devices – which had meant that they were ensconced, with an air of embattled determination, in the Music Room, too intent upon bettering themselves even to indulge their incessant and inappeasable affections – with the promise, or threat, of interviews with the duke, _privatim et seriatim,_ in the library after luncheon. For now, the duke was discussing men and measures with The Lads and his (other) potential partners, stars and retired City gents alike.

‘I must say,’ said the duke, ‘the conventional model in this foul industry … a citadel and a snare, fit for mischief and for use, really.’ He paused expectantly, and was disappointed, although not – alas – surprised, to receive only a nod from the Rector and a wink and a finger-wave from Sher. ‘Hazlitt, damn it all, no one _reads_ Hazlitt in these thin and pipin’ times, it’s intolerable.’ He sighed. ‘Point bein’, it’s set up to bugger the artist. Oh, it looks well on paper, not least as to needle-drops and mechanical royalties, and the purported fifty-fifty split – but when one looks at the dodges and sharp praggers, all the off-the-top this and recoupable bugger-the-other.... Well. That wants renegotiatin’. And so by God it shall _have_. They’re like Israel Hands, these buggers: they wants the artists’ pickles and wines and that. Oh, sweet Christ, does _no one_ these days _read_ Robert Louis Stevenson?

‘As for artists’ management.... I see no reason why we should ask more than ten per cent. of net, with – because God knows these lads want tour management they can _trust_ for a bloody change – two and a half for that bit. And damn most of the appearance and morals clauses restrictions.’

‘Agreed,’ said Macca, speaking for them all.

‘There’s a line from a Matt Fishel song,’ said Mika: ‘“the kids already know”.’

‘Quite,’ said the duke. ‘Damn it all, if we manage them, we manage them: which is a wholly different job to bein’ their parents, their priest, or their moral tutor, not that I see any of them up at Oxford – oh, possibly Malik, that one’s too clever by half: but the rest.... Not thick, but hardly, ah, academically inclined, and there are too many hearty passmen up already, takin’ up places the deservin’ might fill.’

‘Charles....’

‘You know I’m right, Nobby. D’ y’ remember that damned fool from Exeter – excellent pace-bowler, but thick as one of Ian’s bricks, no wonder he’s an MP today –’

‘ _Charles._ ’

‘All right, all right. Keep your hair on. Lew, I’m not inclined to put any restrictions on their rights of _political_ speech either....’

‘Styles, I take it, balances out Malik in any event, Labourite though he be.’ Lew shook his head. ‘He certainly _looks_ – that _hat_ – like the new assistant rabbi for a Liberal congregation in the West Midlands, the one charged with special responsibility for young people and LJY-Netzer.’

‘And,’ added the Nawab, with fastidious distaste, ‘the fandom appears, from what I have learnt, to be quite as daft.’ HH the Nawab had less than no use for his ostensible co-religionists in Gaza, on the grounds that Pakistan’d do as Israel did, and, he insisted, rightly, if Indian-backed groups in J&K were lobbing missiles into the former. ‘I think a spot of education is wanted, but I also should deprecate suppression.’

‘The casual – and I think merely ignorant – racism must stop, all the same.’ Dame Shirley was severe.

‘Absolutely. Again: a spot of eddication. And – I am carefully not lookin’ at anyone – the drink and the druggin’....’

‘They do want to be ready to go on when it’s time.’ Sir Tom’s was the business view.

‘And without a commitment to demean themselves in accordance with law,’ said Jonathan, ‘I cannot recommend an investment.’

‘Yes. I shall impress upon them that they do have duties, not so much to us or the damned fans, but to their crew and musicians, whose livelihoods are to a degree in their hands. Now. Shares.

‘Alam, as the next heir, you, I understand, agree with Nobby that the family _waqf_ ought to become, with me, a general partner in Clumber Management. Very well. As for limited partnership shares, I believe we remain at two each for Macca, Ian, and Dame Shirley, and one each for the rest of you, includin’ Jonathan as nominee, and includin’ one for Teddy-and-Edmond, one for Gwen-and-The-Breener, and one for Sher-and-Noel.’

‘Charles: no. If Sher and his family wish to invest, that’s one thing, but – although I am, owing to your machinations and to the despair of the Central and Diocesan boards meant to ensure equitable stipends, an absurdly overpaid clergyman, I cannot –’

‘No, because, my dear Noel, you give away all the surplus in small charities. But I don’t wish your money, or Sher’s: I want what the Yanks call your “sweat-equity”, both of you. Damn it all, the _reason_ we – I mean The Fonts – can manage such turns as a Gregorian chant version of “Hold Back the Night” is that Sher’s a musicologist and you’re a musical and liturgical phenomenon, and you two even beyond the rest of The Lads understand the _history_ of music – Mirfield did well by you. Which I must remember to explain to our embarrassed – I had no choice, it was wanted as an object lesson – boybanders, mustn’t I. Because, having looked this out, I am alarmed by the idiotic and callous strains put on their voices – Styles’ most of all – and, by God, they are _not_ going into a studio or onto a stage again until they’ve sorted their tessituras, at whatever change to their signature sound. All right?’

Reluctantly overborne, Noel nodded an assent.

‘Right, then. Jonathan, if you’d set all this in train with Hales-Owen, and contracts of the sort we’ve discussed? Excellent.’

* * *

‘So what it comes to is we don’t _know_ – we can’t _prove_ – what the little shits are up to.’

* * *

‘Gentlemen. Before we start our one-on-one talks. Did you know that Mr Mirza holds not only his MA from York, having read English, but the MMus from Leeds? He is also holds an Associateship Diploma from the Royal College of Organists, and their Choral Directing Diploma. And Fr Paddick is little less learnèd.

‘In fact, we’re a disgustingly academical lot. Edmond got a BA – Hons, at that – of the Open University whilst he was recovering from his career-endin’ injuries, and Teddy has an MSc from the Frogs, in Lyons, the _école de management,_ all in conjunction with his studies at the Institut Paul Bocuse. And The Breener did, after all, go to Downside, which suffices for most purposes.

‘In short, this morning, you, gentlemen, never stood a chance: because you’d been _given_ no chance. Well, that can change. And shall: if you accept my proposal.

‘Now, here – with percentages – is what Clumber Management is willing to do for you....’

* * *

‘Cyril.’

Ponton looked up from his calibrations. ‘Yes, Mr Viney?’

‘His Grace shall require several motorcars on Monday.’

* * *

‘Can....’ Zayn’s voice was unwontedly small. ‘Can we have Paul back? We were – manœuvred – into an impossible position.’

‘I imagine so. I’ll make every effort. Now: Mr Payne. If you’ll come along into the Library with me, please.’

* * *

‘This,’ said Macca, ‘is actually going to be rather fun.’

No one disagreed. The musicians in particular looked forrards to settling old scores.

* * *

The duke’s pitch was effectively the same to all of the young men.

‘... laws similar to those in _this_ country. The primary reason bein’ that you’ve a responsibility to one another and the crew and the staff and your band, whose livelihoods depend ultimately on you. I say, “similar to our own laws”, because there are benighted countries – Russia, China, and smaller deer – where the statute-books penalise merely existin’ in possession of your universal human rights, and sod that for a game of soldiers. Sort of places want to be reduced to irradiated obsidian and their parties and pols put up against a wall and shot, and damn me if I’ll insist on regarding those sort of laws as bindin’.

‘Now. Personal and musical development. If you wish to learn _properly_ to write music and lyrics, I can have half the Royal College of Music come down and give lessons. And more than that, Mr Payne, if you really desire to become a testudinologist – that’s the study of turtles and tortoises, not Roman infantry tactics when faced with archers – that can be arranged, and God knows the Open University exists for a reason, only thing Harold Wilson did that was worth a damn –’

‘ _... Mr Malik, you’re free of the Long Gallery and I can have any three Royal Academicians down to teach drawin’...’_

‘ _... Mr Tomlinson, Edmond’ll happily aid you, and Tom and Lew so far as investin’ goes; and the Open University offers a BA (Hons), I understand, in Business Management (Sport and Football)...’_

‘ _... Mr Styles, m’ cook and Teddy’ll happily make you free of their kitchens and teach you all they know, and in addition to the Open University there’s always the City & Guilds courses in cookery and what not...’_

‘ _... Mr Horan, there are any number of programmes...’_

‘I do worry about your fallin’ down all the time. Whether it’s alk, or an inner ear issue, or neurological, we _shall_ by God be gettin’ it sorted –’

‘ _... on a personal level. We can and shall get you what help you want – and I must say, I’d like to think that the endin’ of almost all these insultin’ and degradin’ restrictions on you and your personal life’d relieve you of any temptation to, ah, self-medicate...’_

‘... tessitura. Your voices have been abused. Well, you’ll be stoppin’ here for some weeks, and save if and when you’re in public, I want everything from “Good mornin’” to “Pass the salt” rather _sung_ – or rather plainchanted – than _said,_ in whatever range is most comfortable to you.’

‘ _... been treated appallin’ly. What you have, Tomlinson, is a splendid West End voice, and, no, that’s not a “show tunes” sneer, and it’s more than adapted for pop, or can be, with proper trainin’ undertaken in_ your _interest and not that of some quick-money, fly-by-night, self-dealin’ bastards of a management company...’_

‘ _... range, and particularly in your case, Styles. The thing to do is to strengthen the voice so that it can reach all these ranges – my God, consider the octaves in Mika’s range – not to force it and ruin it. Now, I’m not sayin’ we want to go in for the_ Fach _system, we’re not Glyndebourne, but...’_

‘... my tailors. You can afford it, and if you do in fact wish to be taken seriously, you want to learn to dress the part. They dress me; they dress the Prince of Wales, yes: but also Tom Ford, and they trained Alexander McQueen. God, man, they dressed Olivier and Astaire and Duke Ellington.

‘Now. One last thing. Anything I say to you – or Nobby does – unless we specifically say otherwise and for a reason, _which we shall give_ – you may tell anyone. Anything you tell me, unless you say otherwise, or Nobby, is known to the three of us alone. Full stop. So: will this do?’

It took no more consultation between the boys than a look, after the interviews were done and dusted, to say a resounding, ‘We’re in’.

And if there was – Niall simply closed his mind to the idea and got stuck in to the tray of biscuits – a certain amount of enthusiastically celebratory sex that night in Louis’ room and in Liam’s, well, no names, no pack-drill....

* * *

On the Monday – after a Sunday which caused Wolfdown House to resound to new harmonies as the boys diligently started in to find their true ranges – a fleet of ducal Bristols, travelling with military precision and in military secrecy, conveyed the boys, the duke, and HH the Nawab up to London, to put the young men on the books of the duke’s bootmakers (Jno Lobb – the _real_ one), shirtmakers (Turnbull & Asser), hatters (Lock), and, of course, tailors (Anderson & Sheppard). Obviously, it should be some time before this bore fruit, but in the interim, there was always Barbour – and, the duke supposed, indulgently, remembering that the boys were young, bloody Boden.

The duke, the Nawab, and a few old friends were to go back up to town on the Thursday, with Clumber Management duly registered, to beard Modest in its den.

* * *

‘Now, gentlemen,’ said the duke, as they dined. ‘Generally speakin’, your personal lives are, to me, just that: yours, and personal. All the same: to confirm … Miss Calder is?’

‘Contractual,’ said Louis, clearly embarrassed.

‘All right. And Miss Edwards, Mr Malik?’

‘Uh. Same, like.’ He kept his eyes on his plate.

‘Mr Payne: Miss Smith?’

Liam sighed. ‘Partly a friend, or was, an acquaintance anyroadup back when I were younger … but, well.... Contractual.’

‘And which of them are likely to cut up rough at the termination of that contract?’

‘Well,’ said Harry, slowly, with grudging justice, ‘El’s … she’s not so bad.’ Louis squeezed his hand, gratefully.

‘Excellent. Mr Malik, I think I’m right that Miss Edwards’ attitude shall necessarily be dictated by that of Modest, as the pretended relationship is a commercial one set up for and by management and the label?’

Zayn nodded, unwilling to speak. Yet, again in strict justice, he forced himself to do. ‘She’s … Perrie’s been as much a friend, like, and colleague, as could be, with all this sharn.’

‘Very well. Now. Mr Payne.’

‘I dunno. Soph’s … hard to predict.’

Zayn snorted.

‘Well, we shall deal with what may come. Mr Horan, I presume you have a carefully hidden inamorata? Or is it rather a girl in every port?’

Niall blushed.

‘Well, let me know privately. Capital grouse, this,’ said the duke. ‘Some August we’ll arrange for you not to be on tour, and you can come and shoot with me.’

* * *

‘I just can’t,’ said Louis, that night, to a drowsy Harry. Harry, after their exertions, had every right to his exhaustion. ‘I can’t credit it could be over soon. Fancy: us, free and out – and Zayn and Payno, too.’

‘Yah,’ murmured Harry. ‘Way it ought to’ve been from the off....’ He trailed away into snores, as Louis, tired though he was, remained awake, wide-eyed in the dark, seeing unimaginable possibilities.

* * *

The Thursday dawned clear and cool: a character shared by the men who strode into the Modest offices – which were anything but modest, thereby further raising the ducal hackles, gorge, and contempt, as it suggested the buggers had done very well for themselves from their depredations.

‘Magee, Griffiths, and Bloomfield, please. At once.’

‘Have you an appointment?’

The duke raised an eyebrow, coolly, but answered with terrifying affability. ‘Not in the least. I cannot imagine it matters, however. I am the duke of Taunton. This is HH the Nawab of Hubli; this, Lord Lothian; Simon Hales-Owen, the solicitor; and Jonathan here is Attorney-General to the Duchy of Cornwall.’

‘One – one moment, Your Grace.’

* * *

Ushered into a conference room dowered with tea, biscuits, and three rather nervous (and accordingly blustering) executives, the duke’s good cheer was positively ominous.

‘Ah. Griffiths. At liberty, I see – for now.’ He took out a banknote and tossed it upon the table. ‘There’s five quid: my offer for you to sell your management contract with One Direction to Clumber Management, in which HH the Nawab and I are the general partners.’

‘You’re mad,’ said Harry Magee, in hushed tones.

‘Not at all. It’s your one chance to profit in any way from the transfer – and transfer there shall be.’

‘Like buggery there will be! You may be a duke –’

‘Oh, I assuredly am. Blame the inability of the second James to keep it in the royal breeches.’

‘You –’

‘Let us not waste time, you ghastly little man. This is the marquess of Lothian, better known professionally as Michael Ancram QC: you’ll remember him from the Conservative front bench in opposition. Simon Hales-Owen is of course a highly competent solicitor. Now, I’ve not gone into this without takin’ advice, y’ know. You lot have more problems on your hands than your clear anticipatory breaches of your contract, you’ve actually breached the damned thing. The –’

‘Prove that in court. Or, rather, let those little poofs try and do, it’s not as if you’ve any standing to –’

‘Oh, I can’t imagine its coming to court. There are so many preliminary actions that’ll dispose of it before it gets that far. Take these clauses under which you control their media presentations and more, and the so-called morals clause. Really, a fake engagement? Bearding? I don’t see HM judges upholding those clauses if anyone were ever to leave off cowerin’ and challenge the damned things – nor can I imagine even Nigel, let alone Dave and Nick and Ed, not supportin’ a bill to end them: my view as a Member of HM Most Honourable Privy Council, there, for what it’s worth – and as for the ECHR in Strasbourg.... I know, Better Off Out is my watchword, but so long as we _are_ saddled with the soddin’ Continentals we may as well _use_ the buggers.... But of course that’s a step or so down the drove itself. Just reviewin’ the way you’ve treated young Mr Malik, on the basis of race and religion and ethnicity, and leavin’ sexuality out of it, I can see you lot, easily, spendin’ the rest of your miserable lives in front of a succession of EHRC proceedin’s – _can’t you?_

‘So I’m not here to insist upon things because I’m a duke, but rather because I’ve taken advice, with my partners. And I think it only fair – I suggest you _not_ take that biscuit, Magee, I’ll not be responsible for your asphyxiatin’ – I think it only fair to tell you that the limited partners in Clumber Management include, in addition to Sir Thomas Douty – late Alderman of the City of London for the Ward of Farringdon Without – and Lew Salmon – late Common Councilman of the City for Vintry Ward, and Member of the Bank of England Monetary Policy Committee –, some names you’ll recognise. Dame Shirley Bassey. Sir Paul McCartney. Ian Anderson – our heavy horse, if you will. Adele. And Mika. So the question begins to become, do you wish ever to work in this industry again? I mean, I can tell you already I’ll do all in my considerable power to see you broke and beggin’ your bread in the street, and you can kiss farewell forever any chance of seein’ your name in an Honours List, but this may be, actually, worse for you. Oh – I damned nearly forgot. Jonathan, here, is present as a nominee limited partner, in his capacity – it’s not precisely covered by the Official Secrets Act, after all – as Attorney-General to that duchy and that prince whose Originals biscuits you’re scoffing – there, I _told_ you to put the biscuit down, someone slap the silly sod on the back before he goes blue.

‘So. You having argued, my offer is now _three_ pounds. Well?’ 

* * *

 


	3. Epilogue: Another great advantage

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The spoils and the victors.

* * *

The announcement, on the Monday next succeeding, of the management change – which Fleet Street could not help but characterise as ‘Bassey and Beatle to manage One D with Adele, Mika, and Jethro Tull frontman!’, to the duke’s amusement – naturally broke Twitter and Tumblr, set fandom in a frenzy which lasted simply for _months,_ and entertained the duke no end. The return of Paul Higgins to the fold, and the ensuing reconciliation, even the duke found touching, and it kept the fandom in its frenzy; but of course it was the coincidence of Modest’s going into receivership and the comings-out of Harry and Louis and of Liam and Zayn which brought the Internet down for a good three hours. (This had annoyed the duke had the Ashes been in Australia: he liked to have several windows open for extra commentary whilst he listened to TMS on the digital wireless: but as he was in the Long Room at Lord’s for the second Test when it all blew up in July, it affected him not at all.)

It had been the duke, also, who had handled the dismissal of the beards. Eleanor had been pensioned off with thanks, for, in truth, she had not done ill by the boys, and Louis was not without a friendly fondness for her; Perrie had understood the score from the start, and had been gracious and professional about the whole boiling.

The interview with Sophia had been rather stormier. The duke had explained, glacially, that her contract had been with Modest. If, he’d said, she was contendin’ Clumber’d not bought the damned thing, she could apply to Modest for her mun; but as Clumber _had_ bought the damned thing, he was exercisin’ the termination clause.

‘And what,’ had she asked, nastily, ‘keeps me from Telling All to the press unless I get a bigger payout than that?’

‘Ah,’ had the duke said. ‘That does change things.’ He’d ignored her smug little smile at that. ‘Do I understand you to say that unless you’re paid more than the contract calls for, you’ll go to the hacks, incidentally violatin’ your NDA? Because that _should_ change things. It’d change things because demandin’ money with menaces is a felony, m’ girl – they call it blackmail, in the vulgar tongue – and although Liam might be inclined to mercy, I am not, and in the unlikely event the CPS don’t take it up I can well afford to underwrite a private prosecution that’ll leave you a guest of Her Majesty in one of HM Prisons.’

There’d been no more heard of that demand, after. (As for Modest, the duke had insisted there not be a non-disclosure cause in their surrender, on the ground that if they were fools enough to choose to say anything against his clients, he’d see to it his clients told, in detail, every last thing they knew about Modest. Modest had been silent as a tomb since.)

The boys were by then in better health than they had been in some years. The removal of the strains and stresses upon the two couples – which had resulted in Zayn’s and Liam’s indulging a lasting mode of tenderness which melted even hearts coldly indisposed to them or to their love, and in something of the sort, after a month or so of rather obnoxious, if grudgingly charming, public over-affection on the parts of Hazza and The Tommo – had been matched by a similar relief to Niall, who was no longer compelled to closet his own private life for fear that the sight of a true and healthy relationship should immediately show the beardings for what they were. It was a great relief to Nialler: as the duke had pointed out, quoting (naturally) Chesterton, being forced to be perpetually cheery and to pretend to incessant hilarity is wearisome, not only for the Pagliacci figure condemned to the role but also for his audience. Freedom and honesty had done them nothing but good; and if there were fans, or their parents, who turned away from them over the freedom and the honesty, the abandonment of falsehood had brought new ones: not for political reasons or even from respect for a new-found maturity, but because – as in the days of the X Factor, when the world had first fallen a little in love with these five boys – seeing them as themselves and simply _being_ themselves, irresistibly charmed even the sternest into affection for them.

What was more, the boys, by then, were in better voice than they had ever been. The ducal insistence that they learn whence their music came – particularly in light of their personal origins (counting Niall, as a Rams supporter, as a Northerner, and recalling the Catacombs in Wolvo, the duke had made certain they became intimately familiar with Northern Soul) – and their finding their tessituras had deepened their quality without wholly changing their undoubted appeal; they had learnt much from their new mentors and rather more, about life and love as well as music, from their new friends in the Woolfonts; and not Northern Soul only, but also Celtic music, and swing (trust Niall), and the harmonies of colliery brass bands subtly influenced their sound nowadays. They were young men now, happy and healthy, out and free, making music for other young – and not so young – adults; and they were marketed accordingly (a transition in the accomplishment of which Macca’s experience was an invaluable guide).

The duke had, inevitably and without meaning to (he never _did_ actually _mean_ to), overshadowed the Azoffs outwith North America (nor had his and Irving Azoff’s renegotiations with Sony and others endeared either of them to the labels or indeed to Simon Cowell, which the duke regarded as a virtue – he really could be an infuriating wee man), but it was difficult even for Irving to hold a grudge when Charles Taunton casually wined and dined him regularly and was making them all so much money: for One Direction now, refined in style yet as a bold and cheeky and boyishly charming as ever, happy and healthy and free and with a good deal more musical _nous_ than before, were truly becoming – to Macca’s glee – the Beatles _de nos jours,_ but with added longevity and no Yoko to break them apart. They were the boys the world had embraced, now grown to young men, with added depths and no detractions or loss.

It was at an August concert, the duke rather reluctantly attending (it was at the Nottingham Arena, and Charles was in Nottingham in any case, the fourth Test being at Trent Bridge), that the spotlight fell for once on him. He was ensconced in one of the new suites (past time for those, really), with headphones on, when he was nudged by a gleeful and enraptured niece Hetty. He sighed and removed his headphones.

From the stage, Liam was yet seeking his attention. ‘Duke! Uncle Charles!’ Someone shoved a microphone into His Grace’s hand.

‘Yes?’

‘You weren’t listening.’

‘My dear Payne. I’m your manager. I’ve heard it all by now. I was listening to Radio 3.’

The large screen caught Liam’s famous pout (and Zayn’s inevitable look of adoration in response). ‘But.’

‘Oh, come now, Payne, I’d not have taken you lot on if I didn’t respect your talents; but the Composer of the Week this week is Bach, and let’s face it, you’re not _that_ good.’

Harry flailed about, laughing, held up it seemed only by the one hand which as ever nowadays was clasped in Louis’ own. ‘But we were _thanking_ you!’

‘Oh. Well, in that case, you’re quite welcome.’ He made to put his headphones back on.

‘We’re thanking you _now,_ ’ said Zayn, leaning into Liam with a hand ’round his waist. ‘In music, like. Sher helped us arrange this for our sound, and Sir Paul went behind your back to clear the rights. Nialler?’

And Niall began to strum some very recognisable chords which made the duke sit up – and not the duke alone: the cameras panned the audience, lingering on a beaming Breener and Aggers (of all unlikely guests at all unlikely concerts), and Joe Root, and Jonny Bairstow, and Moeen Ali sitting beside Zayn’s family.

_When an old cricketer leaves the crease...._

Roy Hodgson’s elegiac anthem and anthemic elegy played on, with soulful harmonies, and in due course the Carlton Brass joined the boys onstage, and Jimmy Anderson, in another box, nudged Finny, and the crowd _(one mad dog and his master)_ stilled. _And it could be me, and it could be thee...._

And it could, perhaps, have been the sting in the ale, but even the duke was not unmoved by this tribute, and the talent he had been granted the privilege of having (humbly enough, for a duke) nurtured and – modestly – set free.

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> ‘God damn my soul, no one reads Swift nowadays, ’s absobloodylutely appallin’!’
> 
> – Charles, duke of Taunton


End file.
